Sunday, June 8, 2008

Millions of Billions

The two most recent episodes of Doctor Who make some remarks about the number of non-human lifeforms. As the doctor says, there are "[over] a million million" entities on the planet.

A million million?

Clearly, he means, over 1012, or, 1000 000 000 000. And yet, in the previous episode, he refers to 109 as being a "billion", clearly following the American example. As such, why is it that he can't remain consistent and therefore refer to 1012 as being a trillion?

Or perhaps, the point of contention that Doctor Who is a [British] BBC production, and should therefore use traditional UK English as opposed to American English (also known as reformed British. They've also since ammended certain orthographical conventions like the single/double quotes, and connexion/connection). In which case, 109 should be "a thousand million", and 1012 should be "one billion".

The geek/mathematician in me demands that the great Doctor Who be at least consistent in his numbers! >.<

As point of reference, the traditional UK system of numbers works as follows:

For some reason, however, the Americans decided that "a thousand million" didn't sound nice enough, and decided to push up the use of prefixes, thus making there numbers significantly smaller. So in the American version:

Incidentally, the number system in East Asia, namely that used in China, Korea and Japan, goes by groups of 4s, or "myriads" (after the archaic Greek number "myriad" for 10000). Unfortunately, like most Chinese innovations, these namings aren't very productive; they don't really generate subsequently large numbers, since their names aren't derived from numbers themselves. But the cool part means that each number is named uniquely, and apparently from Buddhist sutra. Thus:

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About Me

Based in the "true" capital of Canada, I muse about language and literature, occasionally play piano, and regard the public warily. On my spare time, I'll also work on my thesis, and combat ignorance via private tutoring.

for stalking purposes

Glossary

Below is an incomplete list of words I might use without prior explanation:

Anime (アニメ), n.Curious case of re-borrowed vocabulary; original English "animation" shortened to "anime" in Japanese, and lent again into English to denote Japanese cartoons and animated shows.Frell, intj.Substitute for a ruder word of similar sound. "Frell" was acquired from Australia's hit sci-fi series, Farscape. Personally, I found this to be a brilliant alternative of television censorship.HS, n.High School (for me, that would have been gr. 9-13, or ages 14-18).

Japanesque, adj.Resembling Japanese style or sentiment without necessarily being authentically Japanese. According to the OED, this word has been around since 1883 (and seems to have died around the same time).

Manga (漫画), n. Literally, "rambling picture". OED defines it as a Japanese genre of [still] cartoons and comic books.OATUS, adv. (rare)"On a totally unrelated subject". A personal texting innovation by the author of this blog.

PIE (Proto-Indo-European), n.The hypothetical reconstructed language, from which all modern European and Indian languages developed.

Scanlation, n.Blend between "scan" and "translation". Denotes the (legally questionable) practice and production of scanning manga, and translating it online for no cost. Among scanlators, there seems to be a common etiquette of removing scanlations of officially liscenced works in North America.Sesqui-, prefix"One and a half" e.g.:sesquicentury = 150 yearssesquicentimeter = 1.5 cmsesquipedalian = long-worded (lit. 1.5 feet)

SLA (Second Language Acquisition), n.The study of learning second languages (ie, any language in addition to the one already spoken by the learner).

Wapanese, n.A blend between "wannabe" and "Japanese", derogatorily used towards caucasian males who place greater importance/interest in Japanese products and culture than their own. More commonly, the avid watcher of Japanese anime, and reader of Japanese manga.